J. D. “But the patrons of necessity being driven out of the plain field with reason, have certain retreats or distinctions which they fly unto for refuge. First, they distinguish between Stoical necessity and Christian necessity, between which they make a threefold difference.
“First, say they, the Stoics did subject Jupiter to destiny, but we subject destiny to God. I answer, that the Stoical and Christian destiny are one and the same; Fatum, quasi effatum Jovis. Hear Seneca: Destiny is the necessity of all things and actions depending upon the disposition of Jupiter, &c. I add, that the Stoics left a greater liberty to Jupiter over destiny, than these stoical Christians do to God over his decrees, either for the beginnings of things, as Euripides, or for the progress of them, as Chrysippus, or at least of the circumstances of time and place, as all of them generally. So Virgil: Sed trahere et moras ducere, &c. So Osyris in Apuleius, promiseth him to prolong his life, ultra fato constituta tempora, beyond the times set down by the destinies.
“Next, they say, that the Stoics did hold an eternal flux and necessary connexion of causes; but they believed that God doth act præter et contra naturam, besides and against nature. I answer, that it is not much material whether they attribute necessity to God, or to the stars, or to a connexion of causes, so as they establish necessity. The former reasons do not only condemn the ground or foundation of necessity, but much more necessity itself upon what ground soever. Either they must run into this absurdity, that the effect is determined, the cause remaining undetermined; or else hold such a necessary connexion of causes as the Stoics did.
“Lastly, they say, the Stoics did take away liberty and contingence, but they admit it. I answer, what liberty or contingence was it they admit but a titular liberty and an empty shadow of contingence, who do profess stiffly that all actions and events, which either are or shall be, cannot but be, nor can be otherwise, after any other manner, in any other place, time, number, order, measure, nor to any other end, than they are; and that in respect of God determining them to one. What a poor ridiculous liberty or contingency is this!
“Secondly, they distinguish between the first cause, and the second causes; they say, that in respect of the second causes many things are free, but in respect of the first cause all things are necessary. This answer may be taken away two ways.
“First, so contraries shall be true together; the same thing at the same time shall be determined to one, and not determined to one; the same thing at the same time must necessarily be, and yet may not be. Perhaps they will say, not in the same respect. But that which strikes at the root of this question is this, if all the causes were only collateral, this exception might have some colour: but where all the causes being joined together, and subordinate one to another, do make but one total cause, if any one cause (much more the first) in the whole series or subordination of causes be necessary, it determines the rest, and without doubt makes the effect necessary. Necessity or liberty is not to be esteemed from one cause, but from all the causes joined together. If one link in a chain be fast, it fastens all the rest.
“Secondly, I would have them tell me whether the second causes be predetermined by the first cause, or not. If it be determined, then the effect is necessary, even in respect of the second causes. If the second cause be not determined, how is the effect determined, the second cause remaining undetermined? Nothing can give that to another which it hath not itself. But say they, nevertheless the power or faculty remaineth free. True, but not in order to the act, if it be once determined. It is free, in sensu diviso, but not in sensu composito. When a man holds a bird fast in his hand, is she therefore free to fly where she will, because she hath wings? Or a man imprisoned or fettered, is he therefore free to walk where he will, because he hath feet and a locomotive faculty? Judge without prejudice, what a miserable subterfuge is this which many men confide so much in.
T. H. He saith, “a man may perhaps answer, that the necessity of things held by him is not a Stoical necessity, but a Christian necessity,” &c., but this distinction I have not used, nor indeed have ever heard before. Nor do I think any man could make Stoical and Christian two kinds of necessities, though they may be two kinds of doctrine. Nor have I drawn my answer to his arguments from the authority of any sect, but from the nature of the things themselves.
But here I must take notice of certain words of his in this place, as making against his own tenet. “Where all the causes”, saith he, “being joined together, and subordinate one to another, do make but one total cause, if any one cause, much more the first, in the whole series of subordination of causes be necessary, it determines the rest, and without doubt maketh the effect necessary.” For that which I call the necessary cause of any effect, is the joining together of all causes subordinate to the first, into one total cause. If any one of those, saith he, especially the first, produce its effect necessarily, then all the rest are determined, and the effect also necessary. Now, it is manifest, that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next and immediate to it; and therefore by his own reason, all effects are necessary. Nor is that distinction of necessary in respect of the first cause, and necessary in respect of second causes, mine; it does, as he well noteth, imply a contradiction.
J. D. “Because T. H. disavows these two distinctions, I have joined them together in one paragraph. He likes not the distinction of necessity, or destiny, into Stoical and Christian; no more do I. We agree in the conclusion, but our motives are diverse. My reason is, because I acknowledge no such necessity either as the one or as the other; and because I conceive that those Christian writers, who do justly detest the naked destiny of the Stoics, as fearing to fall into those gross absurdities and pernicious consequences which flow from thence, do yet privily, though perhaps unwittingly, under another form of expression introduce it again at the back-door, after they had openly cast it out at the fore-door. But T. H. rusheth boldly without distinctions, which he accounts but jargon, and without foresight, upon the grossest destiny of all others, that is, that of the Stoics. He confesseth, that “they may be two kinds of doctrine.” May be? Nay, they are; without all peradventure. And he himself is the first who bears the name of a Christian, that I have read, that hath raised this sleeping ghost out of its grave, and set it out in its true colours. But yet he likes not the names of Stoical and Christian destiny. I do not blame him, though he would not willingly be accounted a Stoic. To admit the thing, and quarrel about the name, is to make ourselves ridiculous. Why might not I first call that kind of destiny which is maintained by Christians, Christian destiny: and that other maintained by Stoics, Stoical destiny? But I am not the inventor of the term. If he had been as careful in reading other men’s opinions, as he is confident in setting down his own, he might have found not only the thing, but the name itself often used. But if the name of fatum Christianum do offend him, let him call it with Lipsius, fatum verum; who divides destiny into four kinds: 1. mathematical or astrological destiny: 2. natural destiny: 3. Stoical or violent destiny: and 4. true destiny; which he calls, ordinarily, nostrum, our destiny, that is, of Christians; and fatum pium, that is, godly destiny; and defines it just as T. H. doth his destiny, to be (a) a series or order of causes depending upon the divine counsel (De Constantia, lib. 1. cap. xvii. xviii. xix). Though he be more cautelous than T. H. to decline those rocks which some others have made shipwreck upon, yet the divines thought he came too near them; as appears by his Epistle to the Reader in a later edition, and by that note in the margin of his twentieth chapter, ‘Whatsoever I dispute here, I submit to the judgment of the wise, and being admonished I will convert it; one may convince me of error, but not of obstinacy.’ So fearful was he to over-shoot himself; and yet he maintained both true liberty and true contingency. T. H. saith, ‘he hath not sucked his answer from any sect’; and I say, so much the worse. It is better to be the disciple of an old sect, than the ring-leader of a new.
(b) “Concerning the other distinction, of liberty in respect of the first cause, and liberty in respect of the second causes; though he will not see that which it concerned him to answer, like those old Lamiæ, which could put out their eyes when they list; as, namely, that the faculty of willing, when it is determined in order to the act, (which is all the freedom that he acknowledgeth), is but like the freedom of a bird when she is first in a man’s hand, &c.: yet he hath espied another thing wherein I contradict myself, because I affirm, that if any one cause in the whole series of causes, much more the first cause, be necessary, it determineth the rest. But, saith he, ‘it is manifest that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next’. I am glad; yet it is not I who contradict myself, but it is some of his manifest truths which I contradict; that ‘the first cause is a necessary cause of all effects’; which I say is a manifest falsehood. Those things which God wills without himself, he wills freely, not necessarily. Whatsoever cause acts or works necessarily, doth act or work all that it can do, or all that is in its power. But it is evident that God doth not all things without himself, which he can do, or which he hath power to do. He could have raised up children unto Abraham of the very stones which were upon the banks of Jordan (Luke iii. 8); but he did not. He could have sent twelve legions of angels to the succour of Christ, (Matth. xxvi. 53); but he did not. God can make T. H. live the years of Methuselah; but it is not necessary that he shall do so, nor probable that he will do so. The productive power of God is infinite, but the whole created world is finite. And, therefore God might still produce more, if it pleased him. But thus it is, when men go on in a confused way, and will admit no distinctions. If T. H. had considered the difference between a necessary being, and a necessary cause, or between those actions of God which are immanent within himself, and the transient works of God which are extrinsical without himself; he would never have proposed such an evident error for a manifest truth. Qui pauca considerat, facile pronuntiat.”
The Bishop, supposing I had taken my opinion from the authority of the Stoic philosophers, not from my own meditation, falleth into dispute against the Stoics: whereof I might, if I pleased, take no notice, but pass over to No. XIX. But that he may know I have considered their doctrine concerning fate, I think fit to say thus much, that their error consisteth not in the opinion of fate, but in feigning of a false God. When therefore they say, fatum est effatum Jovis, they say no more but that fate is the word of Jupiter. If they had said it had been the word of the true God, I should not have perceived anything in it to contradict; because I hold, as most Christians do, that the whole world was made, and is now governed by the word of God, which bringeth a necessity of all things and actions to depend upon the Divine disposition. Nor do I see cause to find fault with that, as he does, which is said by Lipsius, that (a) fate is a series or order of causes depending upon the Divine counsel; though the divines thought he came too near the rocks, as he thinks I do now. And the reason why he was cautelous, was, because being a member of the Romish Church he had little confidence in the judgment and lenity of the Romish clergy; and not because he thought he had over-shot himself.
(b) “Concerning the other distinction, of liberty in respect of the first cause, and liberty in respect of the second causes, though he will not see that which it concerned him to answer, &c.”, “as, namely, that the faculty of willing, &c.” I answer, that distinction he allegeth, not to be mine, but the Stoics’; and therefore I had no reason to take notice of it; for he disputeth not against me, but others. And whereas he says, it concerned me to make that answer which he hath set down in the words following; I cannot conceive how it concerneth me (whatsoever it may do somebody else) to speak absurdly.
I said that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next and immediate to it; which cannot be doubted, and though he deny it, he does not disprove it. For when he says, “those things which God wills without himself, he wills freely and not necessarily”; he says rashly, and untruly. Rashly, because there is nothing without God, who is infinite, in whom are all things, and in whom we live, move, and have our being; and untruly, because whatsoever God foreknew from eternity, he willed from eternity, and therefore necessarily. But against this he argueth thus: “Whatsoever cause acts or works necessarily, doth work or act all that it can do, or all that is in its power; but it is evident that God doth not all things which he can do,” &c. In things inanimate, the action is always according to the extent of its power; not taking in the power of willing, because they have it not. But in those things that have will, the action is according to the whole power, will and all. It is true, that God doth not all things that he can do if he will; but that he can will that which he hath not willed from all eternity, I deny; unless that he can not only will a change, but also change his will, which all divines say is immutable; and then they must needs be necessary effects, that proceed from God. And his texts, God could have raised up children unto Abraham, &c.; and sent twelve legions of angels, &c., make nothing against the necessity of those actions, which from the first cause proceed immediately.
J. D. “Thirdly, they distinguish between liberty from compulsion, and liberty from necessitation. The will, say they, is free from compulsion, but not free from necessitation. And this they fortify with two reasons. First, because it is granted by all divines, that hypothetical necessity, or necessity upon a supposition, may consist with liberty. Secondly, because God and the good angels do good necessarily, and yet are more free than we. To the first reason, I confess that necessity upon a supposition may sometimes consist with true liberty, as when it signifies only an infallible certitude of the understanding in that which it knows to be, or that it shall be. But if the supposition be not in the agent’s power, nor depend upon anything that is in his power; if there be an exterior antecedent cause which doth necessitate the effect; to call this free, is to be mad with reason.
“To the second reason, I confess that God and the good angels are more free than we are, that is, intensively in the degree of freedom, but not extensively in the latitude of the object; according to a liberty of exercise, but not of specification. A liberty of exercise, that is, to do or not to do, may consist well with a necessity of specification, or a determination to the doing of good. But a liberty of exercise, and a necessity of exercise, a liberty of specification, and a necessity of specification, are not compatible, nor can consist together. He that is antecedently necessitated to do evil, is not free to do good. So this instance is nothing at all to the purpose.”
T. H. But the distinction of free, into free from compulsion, and free from necessitation, I acknowledge. For to be free from compulsion, is to do a thing so as terror be not the cause of his will to do it. For a man is then only said to be compelled, when fear makes him willing to it; as when a man willingly throws his goods into the sea to save himself, or submits to his enemy for fear of being killed. Thus all men that do anything from love, or revenge, or lust, are free from compulsion; and yet their actions may be as necessary as those which are done upon compulsion. For sometimes other passions work as forcibly as fear; but free from necessitation I say nothing can be. And it is that which he undertook to disprove. This distinction, he says, useth to be fortified by two reasons. But they are not mine. The first, he says, is, “that it is granted by all divines, that an hypothetical necessity, or necessity upon supposition, may stand with liberty”. That you may understand this, I will give you an example of hypothetical necessity. If I shall live, I shall eat; this is an hypothetical necessity. Indeed, it is a necessary proposition; that is to say, it is necessary that that proposition should be true, whensoever uttered; but it is not the necessity of the thing, nor is it therefore necessary, that the man shall live, or that the man shall eat. I do not use to fortify my distinctions with such reasons. Let him confute them as he will, it contents me. But I would have your Lordship take notice hereby, how an easy and plain thing, but withal false, may be, with the grave usage of such words as hypothetical necessity, and necessity upon supposition, and such like terms of Schoolmen, obscured and made to seem profound learning.
The second reason that may confirm the distinction of free from compulsion, and free from necessitation, he says, is that ‘God and good angels do good necessarily, and yet are more free than we’. This reason, though I had no need of it, yet I think it so far forth good, as it is true that God and good angels do good necessarily, and yet are free. But because I find not in the articles of our faith, nor in the decrees of our Church, set down in what manner I am to conceive God and good angels to work by necessity, or in what sense they work freely, I suspend my sentence in that point; and am content that there may be a freedom from compulsion, and yet no freedom from necessitation, as hath been proved in that, that a man may be necessitated to some actions without threats and without fear of danger. But how he can avoid the consisting together of freedom and necessity, supposing God and good angels are freer than men and yet do good necessarily, that we must now examine.
“I confess,” saith he, “that God and good angels are more free than we, that is, intensively in degree of freedom, not extensively in the latitude of the object, according to a liberty of exercise, not of specification.” Again we have here two distinctions that are no distinctions, but made to seem so by terms invented, by I know not whom, to cover ignorance, and blind the understanding of the reader. For it cannot be conceived that there is any liberty greater than for a man to do what he will, and to forbear what he will. One heat may be more intensive than another, but not one liberty than another. He that can do what he will, hath all liberty possible; and he that cannot, has none at all. Also liberty (as he says the Schools call it) of exercise, which is, as I have said before, a liberty to do or not to do, cannot be without a liberty, which they call of specification; that is to say, a liberty to do or not to do this or that in particular. For how can a man conceive, that he has liberty to do any thing, that hath not liberty to do this, or that, or somewhat in particular? If a man be forbidden in Lent to eat this, and that, and every other particular kind of flesh, how can he be understood to have a liberty to eat flesh, more than he that hath no license at all?
You may by this again see the vanity of distinctions used in the Schools; and I do not doubt but that the imposing of them by authority of doctors in the Church, hath been a great cause that men have laboured, though by sedition and evil courses, to shake them off; for, nothing is more apt to beget hatred, than the tyrannising over man’s reason and understanding, especially when it is done, not by the Scripture, but by pretence of learning, and more judgment than that of other men.
J. D. “He who will speak with some of our great undertakers about the grounds of learning, had need either to speak by an interpreter, or to learn a new language (I dare not call it jargon or canting) lately devised, not to set forth the truth, but to conceal falsehood. He must learn a new liberty, a new necessity, a new contingency, a new sufficiency, a new spontaneity, a new kind of deliberation, a new kind of election, a new eternity, a new compulsion, and in conclusion, a new nothing. (a) This proposition, the will is free, may be understood in two senses; either that the will is not compelled, or that the will is not always necessitated; for if it be ordinarily, or at any time free from necessitation, my assertion is true, that there is freedom from necessity. The former sense, that the will is not compelled, is acknowledged by all the world as a truth undeniable: voluntas non cogitur. For if the will may be compelled, then it may both will and not will the same thing at the same time, under the same notion; but this implies a contradiction. Yet this author, like the good woman whom her husband sought up the stream when she was drowned upon pretence that when she was living she used to go contrary courses to all other people, holds, that true compulsion and fear may make a man will that which he doth not will, that is, in his sense may compel the will: “as when a man willingly throws his goods into the sea to save himself, or submits to his enemy for fear of being killed”. I answer, that T. H. mistakes sundry ways in this discourse.
(b) “First, he erreth in this, to think that actions proceeding from fear are properly compulsory actions: which in truth are not only voluntary, but free actions; neither compelled, nor so much as physically necessitated. Another man, at the same time, in the same ship, in the same storm, may choose, and the same individual man otherwise advised might choose not, to throw his goods overboard. It is the man himself, who chooseth freely this means to preserve his life. It is true, that if he were not in such a condition, or if he were freed from the grounds of his present fears, he would not choose neither the casting of his goods into the sea, nor the submitting to his enemy. But considering the present exigence of his affairs, reason dictates to him, that of two inconveniences the less is to be chosen, as a comparative good. Neither doth he will this course as the end or direct object of his desires, but as the means to attain his end. And what fear doth in these cases, love, hope, hatred, &c. may do in other cases; that is, may occasion a man to elect those means to obtain his willed end, which otherwise he would not elect. As Jacob, to serve seven years more, rather than not to enjoy his beloved Rachel. The merchant, to hazard himself upon the rough seas in hope of profit. Passions may be so violent, that they may necessitate the will, that is, when they prevent deliberations; but this is rarely, and then the will is not free. But they never properly compel it. That which is compelled, is against the will; and that which is against the will, is not willed.
(c) “Secondly, T. H. errs in this also, where he saith, that ‘a man is then only said to be compelled, when fear makes him willing to an action’: as if force were not more prevalent with a man, than fear. We must know therefore, that this word compelled is taken two ways: sometimes improperly, that is, when a man is moved or occasioned by threats or fear, or any passion, to do that which he would not have done, if those threats or that passion had not been. Sometimes it is taken properly; when we do any thing against our own inclination, moved by an external cause, the will not consenting nor concurring, but resisting as much as it can. As in a rape, or when a Christian is drawn or carried by violence to the idol’s temple. Or as in the case of St. Peter (John xxi. 18): Another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This is that compulsion, which is understood when we say, the will may be letted, or changed, or necessitated, or that the imperate actions of the will, that is the actions of the inferior faculties which are ordinarily moved by the will, may be compelled: but that the immanent actions of the will, that is, to will, to choose, cannot be compelled; because it is the nature of an action properly compelled, to be done by an extrinsical cause, without the concurrence of the will.
(d) “Thirdly, the question is not, whether all the actions of a man be free, but whether they be ordinarily free. Suppose some passions are so sudden and violent, that they surprise a man, and betray the succours of the soul, and prevent deliberation; as we see in some motus primo primi, or antipathies, how some men will run upon the most dangerous objects, upon the first view of a loathed creature, without any power to contain themselves. Such actions as these, as they are not ordinary, so they are not free; because there is no deliberation nor election. But where deliberation and election are, as when a man throws his goods overboard to save the ship, or submits to his enemy to save his life, there is always true liberty.
“Though T. H. slight the two reasons which I produce in favour of his cause, yet they who urged them deserved not to be slighted, unless it were because they were School-men. The former reason is thus framed: a necessity of supposition may consist with true liberty. But that necessity which flows from the natural and extrinsical determination of the will, is a necessity of supposition. To this, my answer is in effect, that (e) a necessity of supposition is of two kinds. Sometimes the thing supposed is in the power of the agent to do, or not to do. As for a Romish priest to vow continence, upon supposition that he be a Romish priest, is necessary; but because it was in his power to be a priest or not to be a priest, therefore his vow is a free act. So supposing a man to have taken physic, it is necessary that he keep at home; yet because it was in his power to take a medicine or not to take it, therefore his keeping at home is free. Again, sometimes the thing supposed is not in the power of the agent to do, or not to do. Supposing a man to be extremely sick, it is necessary that he keep at home; or supposing that a man hath a natural antipathy against a cat, he runs necessarily away so soon as he sees her: because this antipathy, and this sickness, are not in the power of the party affected, therefore these acts are not free. Jacob blessed his sons, Balaam blessed Israel; these two acts being done, are both necessary upon supposition. But it was in Jacob’s power, not to have blessed his sons; so was it not in Balaam’s power, not to have blessed Israel (Numb. xxii. 38). Jacob’s will was determined by himself; Balaam’s will was physically determined by God. Therefore Jacob’s benediction proceeded from his own free election; and Balaam’s from God’s determination. So was Caiphas’ prophecy (John xi. 51): therefore the text saith, he spake not of himself. To this T. H. saith nothing; but only declareth by an impertinent instance, what hypothetical signifies; and then adviseth your Lordship, to take notice how errors and ignorance may be cloaked under grave scholastic terms. And I do likewise intreat your Lordship to take notice, that the greatest fraud and cheating lurks commonly under the pretence of plain dealing. We see jugglers commonly strip up their sleeves, and promise extraordinary fair dealing, before they begin to play their tricks.
“Concerning the second argument drawn from the liberty of God and the good angels; as I cannot but approve his modesty, in ‘suspending his judgment concerning the manner how God and the good angels do work necessarily or freely, because he finds it not set down in the Articles of our faith, or the decrees of our Church’, especially in this age, which is so full of atheism, and of those scoffers which St. Peter prophesied of, (2 Pet. iii. 3), who neither believe that there is God or angels, or that they have a soul, but only as salt, to keep their bodies from putrifaction; so I can by no means assent unto him in that which follows, that is to say, that he hath proved that liberty and necessity of the same kind may consist together, that is, a liberty of exercise with a necessity of exercise, or a liberty of specification with a necessity of specification. Those actions which he saith are necessitated by passion, are for the most part dictated by reason, either truly or apparently right, and resolved by the will itself. But it troubles him, that I say that God and the good angels are more free than men, intensively in the degree of freedom, but not extensively in the latitude of the object, according to a liberty of exercise, but not of specification: which he saith are no distinctions, but terms invented to cover ignorance. Good words. Doth he only see? Are all other men stark blind? By his favour, they are true and necessary distinctions; and if he alone do not conceive them, it is because distinctions, as all other things, have their fates, according to the capacities or prejudices of their readers. But he urgeth two reasons. ‘One heat,’ saith he, ‘may be more intensive than another, but not one liberty than another.’ Why not, I wonder? Nothing is more proper to a man than reason; yet a man is more rational than a child, and one man more rational than another, that is, in respect of the use and exercise of reason. As there are degrees of understanding, so there are of liberty. The good angels have clearer understandings than we, and they are not hindered with passions as we, and by consequence they have more use of liberty than we. (f) His second reason is: ‘he that can do what he will, hath all liberty, and he that cannot do what he will, hath no liberty’. If this be true, then there are no degrees of liberty indeed. But this which he calls liberty, is rather an omnipotence than a liberty to do whatsoever he will. A man is free to shoot, or not to shoot, although he cannot hit the white whensoever he would. We do good freely, but with more difficulty and reluctance than the good spirits. The more rational, and the less sensual the will is, the greater is the degree of liberty. His other exception against liberty of exercise, and liberty of specification, is a mere mistake, which grows merely from not rightly understanding what liberty of specification, or contrariety is. A liberty of specification, saith he, is a liberty to do or not to do this or that in particular. Upon better advice he will find, that this which he calls a liberty of specification, is a liberty of contradiction, and not of specification, nor of contrariety. To be free to do or not to do this or that particular good, is a liberty of contradiction; so likewise, to be free to do or not to do this or that particular evil. But to be free to do both good and evil, is a liberty of contrariety, which extends to contrary objects or to diverse kind of things. So his reason to prove that a liberty of exercise cannot be without a liberty of specification, falls flat to the ground: and he may lay aside his lenten licence for another occasion. I am ashamed to insist upon these things, which are so evident that no man can question them who doth understand them.
(g) “And here he falls into another invective against distinctions and scholastical expressions, and the ‘doctors of the Church, who by this means tyrannized over the understandings of other men.’ What a presumption is this, for one private man, who will not allow human liberty to others, to assume to himself such a licence to control so magistrally, and to censure of gross ignorance and tyrannising over men’s judgments, yea, as causes of the troubles and tumults which are in the world, the doctors of the Church in general, who have flourished in all ages and all places, only for a few necessary and innocent distinctions. Truly, said Plutarch, that a sore eye is offended with the light of the sun. (h) What then, must the logicians lay aside their first and second intentions, their abstracts and concretes, their subjects and predicates, their modes and figures, their method synthetic and analytic, their fallacies of composition and division, &c.? Must the moral philosopher quit his means and extremes, his principia congenita et acquisita, his liberty of contradiction and contrariety, his necessity absolute and hypothetical, &c.? Must the natural philosopher give over his intentional species, his understanding agent and patient, his receptive and eductive power of the matter, his qualities infusæ or influxæ, symbolæ or dissymbolæ, his temperament ad pondus and ad justitiam, his parts homogeneous and heterogeneous, his sympathies and antipathies, his antiperistasis, &c.? Must the astrologer and the geographer leave their apogæum and perigæum, their artic and antartic poles, their equator, zodiac, zenith, meridian, horizon, zones, &c.? Must the mathematician, the metaphysician, and the divine, relinquish all their terms of art and proper idiotisms, because they do not relish with T. H.’s palate? But he will say, they are obscure expressions. What marvel is it, when the things themselves are more obscure? Let him put them into as plain English as he can, and they shall be never a whit the better understood by those who want all grounds of learning. Nothing is clearer than mathematical demonstration: yet let one who is altogether ignorant in mathematics hear it, and he will hold it to be as T. H. terms these distinctions, plain fustian or jargon. Every art or profession hath its proper mysteries and expressions, which are well known to the sons of art, not so to strangers. Let him consult with military men, with physicians, with navigators; and he shall find this true by experience. Let him go on shipboard, and the mariners will not leave their starboard and larboard, because they please not him, or because he accounts it gibberish. No, no: it is not the School divines, but innovators and seditious orators, who are the true causes of the present troubles of Europe. (i) T. H. hath forgotten what he said in his book, De Cive, cap. XII.: ‘that it is a seditious opinion, to teach that the knowledge of good and evil belongs to private persons’: and cap. XVII. ‘that in questions of faith, the civil magistrates ought to consult with ecclesiastical doctors, to whom God’s blessing is derived by imposition of hands so as not to be deceived in necessary truths, to whom our Saviour hath promised infallibility.’ These are the very men whom he traduceth here. There he ascribes infallibility to them; here he accuseth them of gross superstitious ignorance. There he attributes too much to them; here he attributes too little. Both there and here he takes too much upon him; (1 Cor. xiv. 32): The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.”
(a) “This proposition, the will is free, may be understood in two senses; either that the will is not compelled, or that the will is not always necessitated, &c. The former sense, that the will is not compelled, is acknowledged by all the world as a truth undeniable.” I never said the will is compelled, but do agree with the rest of the world in granting that it is not compelled. It is an absurd speech to say it is compelled, but not to say it is necessitated, or a necessary effect of some cause. When the fire heateth, it doth not compel heat; so likewise when some cause maketh the will to anything, it doth not compel it. Many things may compel a man to do an action, in producing the will; but that is not a compelling of the will, but of the man. That which I call necessitation, is the effecting and creating of that will which was not before, not a compelling of a will already existent. The necessitation or creation of the will, is the same thing with the compulsion of the man, saving that we commonly use the word compulsion, in those actions which proceed from terror. And therefore this distinction is of no use; and that raving which followeth immediately after it, is nothing to the question, whether the will be free, though it be to the question, whether the man be free.
(b) “First he erreth in this, to think that actions proceeding from fear are properly compulsory actions; which in truth are not only voluntary, but free actions.” I never said nor doubted, but such actions were both voluntary and free; for he that doth any thing for fear, though he say truly he was compelled to it, yet we deny not that he had election to do or not to do, and consequently that he was a voluntary and free agent. But this hinders not, but that the terror might be a necessary cause of his election of that which otherwise he would not have elected, unless some other potent cause made it necessary he should elect the contrary. And therefore, in the same ship, in the same storm, one man may be necessitated to throw his goods overboard, and another man to keep them within the ship; and the same man in a like storm be otherwise advised, if all the causes be not like. But that the same individual man, as the Bishop says, that chose to throw his goods overboard, might chose not to throw his goods overboard, I cannot conceive; unless a man can choose to throw overboard and not to throw overboard, or be so advised and otherwise advised, all at once.
(c) “Secondly, T. H. errs in this also, where he saith, that ‘a man is then only said to be compelled, when fear makes him willing to an action.’ As if force were not more prevalent with a man than fear,” &c. When I said fear, I think no man can doubt but the fear of force was understood. I cannot see therefore what quarrel he could justly take, at saying that a man is compelled by fear only; unless he think it may be called compulsion when a man by force, seizing on another man’s limbs, moveth them as himself, not as the other man pleaseth. But this is not the meaning of compulsion: neither is the action so done, the action of him that suffereth, but of him that useth the force. But this, as if it were a question of the propriety of the English tongue, the Bishop denies; and says when a man is moved by fear, it is improperly said he is compelled. But when a man is moved by an external cause, the will resisting as much as it can, then he says, he is properly said to be compelled; as in a rape, or when a Christian is drawn or carried by violence to the idol’s temple. Insomuch as by this distinction it were very proper English to say, that a stone were compelled when it is thrown, or a man when he is carried in a cart. For my part, I understand compulsion to be used rightly of living creatures only, which are moved only by their own animal motion, in such manner as they would not be moved without the fear. But of this dispute the English and well-bred reader is the proper judge.
(d) “Thirdly, the question is not, whether all the actions of a man be free, but whether they be ordinarily free.” Is it impossible for the Bishop to remember the question, which is whether a man be free to will? Did I ever say, that no actions of a man are free? On the contrary, I say that all his voluntary actions are free, even those also to which he is compelled by fear. But it does not therefore follow but that the will, from whence those actions and their election proceed, may have necessary causes, against which he hath never yet said anything. That which followeth immediately, is not offered as a proof, but as explication, how the passions of a man surprise him; therefore I let it pass, noting only that he expoundeth motus primo primi, which I understood not before, by the word antipathy.
(e) “A necessity of supposition is of two kinds; sometimes a thing supposed, is in the power of the agent to do or not to do, &c.; sometimes a thing supposed, is not in the power of the agent to do or not to do,” &c.
When the necessity is of the former kind of supposition, then, he says, freedom may consist with this necessity, in the latter sense that it cannot. And to use his own instances, to vow continence in a Romish priest, upon supposition that he is a Romish priest, is a necessary act, because it was in his power to be a priest or not. On the other side, supposing a man having a natural antipathy against a cat; because this antipathy is not in the power of the party affected, therefore the running away from the cat is no free act.
I deny not but that it is a free act of the Romish priest to vow continence, not upon the supposition that he was a Romish priest, but because he had not done it unless he would; if he had not been a Romish priest, it had been all one to the freedom of his act. Nor is his priesthood anything to the necessity of his vow, saving that if he would not have vowed he should not have been made a priest. There was an antecedent necessity in the causes extrinsical; first, that he should have the will to be a priest, and then consequently that he should have the will to vow. Against this he allegeth nothing. Then for his cat, the man’s running from it is a free act, as being voluntary, and arising from a false apprehension (which nevertheless he cannot help) of some hurt or other the cat may do him. And therefore the act is as free as the act of him that throweth his goods into the sea. So likewise the act of Jacob in blessing his sons, and the act of Balaam in blessing Israel, are equally free and equally voluntary, yet equally determined by God, who is the author of all blessings, and framed the will of both of them to bless, and whose will, as St. Paul saith, cannot be resisted. Therefore both their actions were necessitated equally; and, because they were voluntary, equally free. As for Caiphas’ his prophecy, which the text saith he spake not of himself, it was necessary; first, because it was by the supernatural gift of God to the high-priests, as sovereigns of the commonwealth of the Jews, to speak to the people as from the mouth of God, that is to say, to prophecy; and secondly, whensoever he did speak not as from God, but as from himself, it was nevertheless necessary he should do so, not that he might not have been silent if he would, but because his will to speak was antecedently determined to what he should speak from all eternity, which he hath yet brought no argument to contradict.
He approveth my modesty in suspending my judgment concerning the manner how the good angels do work, necessarily or freely, because I find it not set down in the articles of our faith, nor in the decrees of our Church. But he useth not the same modesty himself. For whereas he can apprehend neither the nature of God nor of angels, nor conceive what kind of thing it is which in them he calleth will, he nevertheless takes upon him to attribute to them liberty of exercise, and to deny them a liberty of specification; to grant them a more intensive liberty than we have, but not a more extensive; using, not incongruously, in the incomprehensibility of the subject incomprehensible terms, as liberty of exercise and liberty of specification, and degrees of intension in liberty; as if one liberty, like heat, might be more intensive than another. It is true that there is greater liberty in a large than in a straight prison, but one of those liberties is not more intense than the other.
(f) “His second reason is, he that can do what he will, hath all liberty, and he that cannot do what he will, hath no liberty. If this be true, then there are no degrees of liberty indeed. But this which he calls liberty, is rather an omnipotence than a liberty.” It is one thing to say a man hath liberty to do what he will, and another thing to say he hath power to do what he will. A man that is bound, would say readily he hath not the liberty to walk; but he will not say he wants the power. But the sick man will say he wants the power to walk, but not the liberty. This is, as I conceive, to speak the English tongue: and consequently an Englishman will not say, the liberty to do what he will, but the power to do what he will, is omnipotence. And therefore either I or the Bishop understand not English. Whereas he adds that I mistake the meaning of the words liberty of specification, I am sure that in that way wherein I expound them, there is no absurdity. But if he say, I understand not what the Schoolmen mean by it, I will not contend with him; for I think they know not what they mean themselves.
(g) “And here he falls into another invective against distinctions and scholastical expressions, and the doctors of the Church, who by this means tyrannized over the understanding of other men. What a presumption is this, for one private man,” &c. That he may know I am no enemy to intelligible distinctions, I also will use a distinction in the defence of myself against this his accusation. I say therefore that some distinctions are scholastical only, and some are scholastical and sapiential also. Against those that are scholastical only, I do and may inveigh. But against those that are scholastical and sapiential also, I do not inveigh. Likewise some doctors of the Church, as Suarez, Johannes à Duns, and their imitators, to breed in men such opinions as the Church of Rome thought suitable to their interest, did write such things as neither other men nor themselves understood. These I confess I have a little slighted. Other doctors of the Church, as Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon, John Calvin, William Perkins, and others, that did write their sense clearly, I never slighted, but always very much reverenced and admired. Wherein, then, lieth my presumption? If it be because I am a private man, let the Bishop also take heed he contradict not some of those whom the world worthily esteems, lest he also (for he is a private man) be taxed of presumption.
(h) “What then, must the logicians lay aside their first and second intentions, their abstracts and concretes &c.: must the moral philosopher quit his means and extremes, his principia congenita et acquisita, his liberty of contradiction and contrariety, his necessity absolute and hypothetical, &c.: must the natural philosopher give over his intentional species, &c.: because they do not relish with T. H.’s palate?” I confess that among the logicians, Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, &c. are terms of art. But if the Bishop think that words of first and second intention, that abstract and concrete, that subjects and predicates, moods and figures, method synthetic and analytic, fallacies of composition and division, be terms of art, I am not of his opinion. For these are no more terms of art in logic, than lines, figures, squares, triangles, &c. in the mathematics. Barbara, Celarent, and the rest that follow, are terms of art, invented for the easier apprehension of young men, and are by young men understood. But the terms of the School with which I have found fault, have been invented to blind the understanding, and cannot be understood by those that intend to learn divinity. And to his question whether the moral philosopher must quit his means and extremes, I answer, that though they are not terms of art, he ought to quit them when they cannot be understood; and when they can, to use them rightly. And therefore, though means and extremes be terms intelligible, yet I would have them quit the placing of virtue in the one, and of vice in the other. But for his liberty of contradiction and contrariety, his necessity absolute and hypothetical, if any moral philosopher ever used them, then away with them; they serve for nothing but to seduce young students. In like manner, let the natural philosopher no more mention his intentional species, his understanding agent and patient, his receptive and eductive power of the matter, his qualities infusæ or influxæ, symbolæ or dissymbolæ, his temperament ad pondus and ad justitiam. He may keep his parts homogeneous and heterogeneous; but his sympathies and antipathies, his antiperistasis and the like names of excuses rather than of causes, I would have him fling away. And for the astrologer, (unless he means astronomer), I would have him throw away his whole trade. But if he mean astronomer, then the terms of apogæum and perigæum, artic, antartic, equator, zodiac, zenith, meridian, horizon, zones, &c. are no more terms of art in astronomy, than a saw or a hatchet in the art of a carpenter. He cites no terms of art for geometry; I was afraid he would have put lines, or perhaps equality or inequality, for terms of art. So that now I know not what be those terms he thinks I would cast away in geometry. And lastly, for his metaphysician, I would have him quit both his terms and his profession, as being in truth (as Plutarch saith in the beginning of the life of Alexander the Great) not at all profitable to learning, but made only for an essay to the learner; and the divine to use no word in preaching but such as his auditors, nor in writing but such as a common reader, may understand. And all this, not for the pleasing of my palate, but for the promotion of truth.
(i) “T. H. hath forgotten what he said in his book, De Cive, cap. XII., that it is ‘a seditious opinion to teach that the knowledge of good and evil belongs to private persons’: and cap. XVII, that ‘in questions of faith the civil magistrates ought to consult with the ecclesiastical doctors, to whom God’s blessing is derived by imposition of hands, so as not to be deceived in necessary truths,’ &c. There he attributes too much to them, here he attributeth too little; both there and here he takes too much upon him. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.” He thinks he hath a great advantage against me from my own words in my book De Cive, which he would not have thought if he had understood them. The knowledge of good and evil is judicature, which in Latin is cognitio causarum, not scientia. Every private man may do his best to attain a knowledge of what is good and evil in the action he is to do; but to judge of what is good and evil in others, belongs not to him, but to those whom the sovereign power appointeth thereunto. But the Bishop not understanding, or forgetting, that cognoscere is to judge, as Adam did of God’s commandment, hath cited this place to little purpose. And for the infallibility of the ecclesiastical doctors by me attributed to them, it is not that they cannot be deceived, but that a subject cannot be deceived in obeying them when they are our lawfully constituted doctors. For the supreme ecclesiastical doctor, is he that hath the supreme power: and in obeying him no subject can be deceived, because they are by God himself commanded to obey him. And what the ecclesiastical doctors, lawfully constituted, do tell us to be necessary in point of religion, the same is told us by the sovereign power. And therefore, though we may be deceived by them in the belief of an opinion, we cannot be deceived by them in the duty of our actions. And this is all that I ascribe to the ecclesiastical doctors. If they think it too much, let them take upon them less. Too little they cannot say it is, who take it, as it is, for a burthen. And for them who seek it as a worldly preferment, it is too much. I take, he says, too much upon me. Why so? Because the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. This is it that he finds fault with in me, when he says that I am a private man, that is to say, no prophet, that is to say, no bishop. By which it is manifest, that the Bishop subjecteth not his spirit but to the Convocation of bishops. I admit that every man ought to subject his spirit to the prophets. But a prophet is he that speaketh unto us from God; which I acknowledge none to do, but him that hath due authority so to do. And no man hath due authority so to do immediately, but he that hath the supreme authority of the commonwealth; nor mediately, but they that speak such things to the people, as he that hath the supreme authority alloweth of. And as it is true in this sense, that the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets; so it is also true that we ought not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world (1 John iv. 1). Therefore I that am a private man, may examine the prophets; which to do, I have no other means but to examine whether their doctrine be agreeable to the law; which theirs is not, who divide the commonwealth into two commonwealths, civil and ecclesiastical.